


Stars

by PandoraAnne



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-26
Updated: 2016-07-26
Packaged: 2018-07-26 19:13:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,758
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7586515
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PandoraAnne/pseuds/PandoraAnne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set after the events of the S3 finale. Clarke watches her friends celebrate the end of another war, while she's already focusing on the next one.<br/>Bellamy finds her and they talk about celebrations and stars and what to do with the rest of your life when you don't know how much longer that will be.<br/>(Fluff and nonsense because these characters deserve to be happy)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stars

It seemed like the whole world was celebrating the defeat of ALIE and her City of Light. Clarke sat just outside the circle of drunken revelers, who were dancing and singing. Holding tight to their newly restored free will by making complete and total idiots of themselves. Clarke smiled at them, feeling no urge to join in with the revelry, not quite sure where she fit in here, not after her self-imposed exile, and her time spent in Polis, not with the weight of what ALIE had told her, the countdown to the end of the world.

It wasn’t fair, she thought, toeing the ground with her booted toe, they had fought so hard, had killed and died and suffered and it didn’t mean anything, the world was still ending and Clarke had no idea how to save it.

The Earth seemed to be crackling with life, as if it had heard ALIE’s deadline and was doing everything it could to prove that she was wrong. Stars were etched out in silver against the inky black sky, trees swayed and shuddered with the movements of countless animals, her people danced around a huge bonfire, their voices sharing the air with the smell of smoke and dirt. Every single aspect of this night seemed to scream of life and vitality and strength, how could it be possible that in just six months all of this would turn into ash and death?

Clarke watched distantly as her people, her friends, passed around bottles of Monty’s moonshine, getting louder and more relaxed each time the bottles made the rounds. Monty, himself, was nowhere to be found. Upon arriving back at Arkadia, he had dug out his still and set to work pumping out gallon after gallon of moonshine with an almost feverish intensity. Clarke tried to tell herself that it was just because he sensed the others need to let loose and celebrate after everything that had happened with ALIE and the City of Light but she had seen the frantic shine in his eye, and she felt uncomfortably certain that he was hidden away somewhere, either black out drunk or so close to it that it made no difference.

There was a pain in her heart as she thought about the goofy boy that had bounded off the drop ship the moment they had landed, comparing him to the shattered and suffering man he was now, only able to find relief at the bottom of a bottle.

And he wasn’t the only one, in fact it seemed as if the people they had been that first time they had set foot on the ground were dead and buried, replaced by these hardened, broken warriors. Octavia, who had been the first out of the drop ship, who had thrown her fists in the air in pure ecstasy and screamed that they were home again, Octavia, who had chased glowing butterflies through the forest was gone, in her place was a woman who had watched the man she loved be executed in front of her eyes, who had run her sword through the man responsible without even batting an eye.

Her eyes found Raven, sitting with her leg at an awkward angle, the pain of it visible on her face even from where Clarke sat. She too had watched the boy she loved died, but that had been by Clarke’s hand, a quick death, a way to escape the torture the Grounders had planned for him.

The more Clarke watched them, the more the pain in her heart grew, until it was a great heavy beast in her chest, squeezing the air from her lungs. Monty had had to kill his mother twice to win a battle that had only succeeded in pushing back their execution date by a few months. All those people who had died, Wells, Finn, Maya, Gina, Lexa, Lincoln, what was the point in their deaths? What had their sacrifices brought the people who loved them? Half a year, at best, half a year of watching the Earth wither and die while the air they breathed and the water they drank poisoned them slowly.

Clarke took a deep breath, trying to fight past the monster in her chest, so caught up in her dark thoughts and pain that she didn’t hear Bellamy until he was only a few feet away from her.

“Having a pity party out here by yourself, princess?” He asked and she jumped, hands going automatically to her eyes, wiping away the angry, miserable tears that had cut tracks down her cheeks.

“It’s not a pity party,” she retorted quickly, but without any real heat. She turned to look at Bellamy, taking in the bottle he held loosely in one hand, the other arm wrapped across his ribs, watching the way he favored his right side and the little groan of pain that escaped him as he settled onto the log next to her.

“You should really let me take a look at that,” she said, her hands already halfway towards when he waved her off.

“Don’t worry, Clarke, you already checked me out back at Polis, and then again when we got to Arkadia. I’ll be fine.”

She knew he was right, along with a myriad of cuts and bruises, Bellamy had also managed to crack a few ribs on his right side. Hardly the worst injury either of them had suffered but still serious enough for Clarke to want to keep a close eye on him. Or at least, that’s what she kept telling herself, she wouldn’t let herself consider the fact that maybe she just wanted an excuse to spend time with him. Things seemed easier when he was with her, his quiet strength somehow bolstering her own, and ever since she had found him again she found it harder and harder to stay away from him, especially with ALIE’s deadline hanging over their heads.

“Besides,” Bellamy continued, breaking through her thoughts, “It doesn’t hurt as much after a few drinks.” He held up the bottle, offering it to her and after a moment’s hesitation, she took it, drinking deeply.

“Holy crap,” she said, wincing and wiping at her mouth with the back of her hand, “That stuff’s strong.”

“Yeah,” Bellamy took the bottle back from her and took another sip, grimacing slightly, “Jasper really outdid himself on this batch.”

“Where is Jasper anyway?” Clarke asked, turning back to the crowd of people, as if expecting Jasper to have suddenly appeared and coerced everyone into a drinking game.

“In his room,” Bellamy answered, handing her back the bottle, and she knew, by the way he was avoiding her eyes, the forced cool in his voice that she had been right. Jasper had taken the spoils of his still and drunk himself into a stupor.

“Maybe someone should go check on him,” Clarke said, rising halfway before Bellamy put his hand on her arm and tugged her firmly back down.

“He needs his space, Clarke, let him deal with this in his own way.”

She wanted to fight him but she knew it was no good. If Bellamy said that Jasper needed his space, then Clarke was going to have to trust that he knew what was best. She had given up the right to judge what was best for her friends, what would help them the most the moment she had walked away from them.

Settling back down, she took another hearty swallow of moonshine, feeling it burn her throat on its way down, the warmth of it curling around the weight in her chest. Silence spread between them as they sat together, watching the festivities, not the easy silence they had once shared, the ability to be perfectly comfortable with each other without having to speak had been one of the things they had lost during Clarke’s three-month self-exile. This silence was heavy, full of things that needed to be said, words that couldn’t seem to fit themselves into sentences, feelings they couldn’t even begin to translate into anything even vaguely resembling speech.

“So, six months, huh?” Bellamy asked, crooking his fingers towards the bottle, now quite a bit lighter than when he had first handed it to her.

“That’s what ALIE said,” Clarke confirmed.

She had told Bellamy everything that had happened in the City of Light, describing how Lexa had appeared to defend her, how she had encountered Becca and the choice ALIE had given her, the death sentence she had given the world. She had told him everything she could remember, desperate not to be the only one to hold that weight on her shoulders, needing Bellamy to be the one she could share it with.

He hadn’t coddled her and fed her nonsense about how the AI was just lying, trying to shock Clarke into keeping her alive. He hadn’t told her that she just needed time to process everything that had happened and it couldn’t really be as bad as she thought it was because that wasn’t who he was. Instead he had listened, every word settling like a weight on his back, sharing the load so she didn’t have to do it alone. His fingers interlaced with hers, giving her a small measure of contact, not pushing her for more, holding her hand as tightly as she held his. And when she had pulled herself together again, when she had brushed away her tears and found the will to tell Abby and Kane, he had kept hold of her hand, never letting go. His presence at her side, unerring and constant, lent her the strength she couldn’t find in herself.

It was only after, when Abby and Kane had agreed to table all discussions concerning the end of the world until they finished dealing with the fall out of the latest battle, when Clarke had let go of Bellamy’s hand to tend to the wounded and he had disappeared to find a way to get them all out of the tower safely that she had realized that Octavia was missing. Bellamy, who always felt his sister’s presence like an extension of himself, had surely noticed before now. And while Clarke tied off a tourniquet around an injured Arker’s leg, she thought back, trying to remember when she had last seen Octavia. She had watched her run Pike through, a sudden and chilling execution that had broken through her fog, and then Octavia had disappeared and Clarke had been too busy trying to come to terms with everything that had just happened that she hadn’t even noticed where she had gone. And Bellamy, who was prepared to kill or die for his sister, who would stow away on a tin can hurtling towards a radiation soaked planet and almost certain death, just on the off chance that he might be able to keep her safe, had let her go. He had watched as his little sister had murdered a man and he hadn’t gone after her, he had somehow gone against every single one of his instincts to stay by Clarke’s side. And she, so caught up in her own grief and pain, hadn’t even noticed.

“We’ll have to make sure that we’ve got enough people to go out on scouting missions,” Bellamy said, breaking Clarke out of her daze, “Once we’ve got an idea of what we’re facing, Raven and the others will be able to figure out how to shut down the nuclear reactors.”

Clarke fought back a smile, grateful for the darkness and the fact that Bellamy seemed fixated on the scene in front of them. Bellamy wouldn’t waste time with soothing lies, pretend like nothing was wrong while the world fell to pieces around them. He might be ruled by his gut, might rely on his instincts instead of cold, hard facts, something that Clarke’s analytical brain would never be able to fully understand. But it allowed him to face his problems head on, find a way to solve them, because, to him, that was the only option.

She followed Bellamy’s gaze to the group in front of them, some of whom had come up with some sort of weird, half-choreographed dance routine that seemed more like a fire hazard than anything else. Frowning, she felt a flicker of annoyance run through her, how could they dance and laugh like nothing was wrong? Could they really forget that death was looming, dark and all-encompassing over their heads yet again?

“I don’t get this,” she said, jerking her chin towards the festivities in front of them, the power of Monty’s moonshine loosening her tongue, “They’re over there, partying like the world didn’t just almost end, like it isn’t still ending, and no one seems to care.”

“Of course they care, Clarke,” Bellamy replied, and she could practically hear him roll his eyes, “That’s why they’re doing all this. They’re scared all the time, they know what life is, they know they could die tomorrow, that’s why they’ll grab hold of any opportunity to celebrate, they never know if they’ll get another chance.”

Clarke sighed, he was right, of course he was right. Just because she couldn’t shut off the doom and gloom in her mind didn’t mean that the others couldn’t either, that they didn’t deserve to.

She grabbed for the bottle, her fingers running across Bellamy’s skin as she did so. A wealth of emotions and thoughts sprung up at the feel of his skin against hers but she shoved them firmly back down, there was only so much Monty’s moonshine could be used as an excuse for and now was definitely not the time for those sorts of things. Not when he could so easily dismiss what she felt as grief over Lexa, or just needing to be with someone, with anyone. So she focused on other things, the burn of the alcohol sliding down her throat, the chilly night air, the music thudding through the system Raven had rigged up.

“Do you ever wish,” Clarke started, the words bursting out of her, taking her by surprise as much as Bellamy, “That you could be someone else? That you could just be a normal person for once?”

She could feel Bellamy studying her face in the darkness, knew the path his dark eyes would be following even if she couldn’t see him. His gaze was unavoidable, a trail of warmth against her skin.

“I do and I don’t,” he answered finally, “I hate the way I grew up, the way Octavia grew up, I hate the terrible things I’ve had to do but . . .” He sighed, and now Clarke did turn to look at him, noticing that, for once, his face was unreadable, “But then again if I was someone else, I’d have to give up all of this.” One hand traced the vague outline of his body, his movements purposely exaggerated as he tried to encompass the full image of Bellamy Blake.

Unable to help herself, Clarke laughed, really laughed, like she hadn’t done in ages.

“You are so full of yourself,” she teased, pushing his shoulder, trying not to think about how firm it felt under her hand, how it felt like she was pushing against a boulder.

Bellamy’s mouth quirked upwards and Clarke knew she was in trouble. Quickly he arranged his face into a look of fake shock, although he couldn’t seem to wipe the wicked gleam from his eyes.

“Did you just push me? What did I ever do to you to deserve that?”

“Really, Bellamy?” She quirked an eyebrow at him, and there seemed to be a crack forming in her high, safe wall, helped along by Monty’s moonshine and Bellamy’s presence. Her tight hold on all the bad things that had happened to them, the nightmares that chased her everywhere she went, was slipping and she could feel the hard knot in her stomach loosening.

He placed a hand against his chest in mock surprise, a gesture she had seen in old movies but had never thought she would see Bellamy Blake use.

“I have been a perfect gentleman to you the entire time I’ve known you,” His eyes flashed again and she knew what he was doing, knew that he was playing her but she couldn’t help rising to the bait, not when he was looking at her like that.

“What the hell do you mean ‘perfect gentleman’?” She asked, a warm rush flooding her cheeks, “You’ve threatened me, called me names, full on attacked me more than once, handcuffed me and threatened me some more, how is any of that gentlemanly?” She counted out each offense on her fingers and held her hand, five fingers splayed wide, in front of his face, daring him to contradict her. And because it was Bellamy, he did.

“Okay, firstly,” he started, grabbing her hand and pulling it away from his face, “I never actually delivered on any of those threats. I may have threatened your life but I never actually tried to kill you.”

Clarke tried to smack him but his hand was still clasped tightly around hers, holding her arm down at their sides.

“Secondly, all that stuff is in the past, ancient history, even.”

“The handcuff thing was just a couple days ago!” She shouted, the alcohol in her system destroying her ability to control the volume of her voice.

“Right, in the past,” Bellamy enunciated every word clearly, as if he was speaking to a child.

This time, Clarke managed to wrench her hand out of Bellamy’s grip and she planted both hands firmly on his chest, pushing as hard as she could.

She knew that she had gotten stronger in the time she had been by herself, running and fighting for her life basically guaranteed that. But she also knew that Bellamy had been training too, building muscle and learning how to fight, honing himself into a warrior. So she rolled her eyes as he began wind milling his arms desperately, making a huge show of trying to keep his seat. She had watched as he had stood his ground against a half-dozen of ALIE’s zombies and she sincerely doubted a drunken push from a girl half his size would be enough to take him down.

But down he went and, grabbing hold of her arm as he went, he made sure he brought Clarke with him.

All the air was forced from her lungs in a great whoosh as her back slammed into the ground, Bellamy falling beside her.

“Ow!” He moaned, clutching his right side, his stupid stunt no doubt bruising his already sensitive ribs even further.

“It’s your own damn fault,” she chastised him, struggling to sit up, her hands already reaching down to pull up the hem of his t-shirt to inspect the damage. But Bellamy stopped her, threading his fingers through hers to keep her hands still.

“Can you stop being a doctor for five seconds?” He asked, using his free hand to push her back down on the ground next to him.

“Only if you stop being an idiot for five seconds,” she shot back, but settled against his side anyway, wriggling a little to dislodge any rocks and twigs that were digging into her spine. She definitely wasn’t doing it in an effort to get closer to Bellamy, they were already lying side by side, the long line of his body tracing hers, their still clasped hands resting on his stomach. The logical part of her, whatever tatters of it the alcohol hadn’t destroyed, told her that she shouldn’t be doing this, that she should be back inside Arkadia, going over ranging maps and drawing up battle plans. But the other part of her, the voice that was overpowering all her logical, rational thoughts, the voice that was beginning to sound more and more like Bellamy, told her to relax, to live a little while she still had the chance. And that voice was just so tempting, especially when Bellamy was lying next to her, his body so warm and comforting, the feeling of his palm against hers both soothing and exciting, sending little flickers of electricity through the veins in her arms, into her chest.

“I am not an idiot,” Bellamy asserted, his petulant tone making him sound like he was about five years old, “I am very smart, I know lots of things about . . . lots of things.”

Somehow he had held onto the bottle of moonshine during their fall and he took a gulp now before holding it out to Clarke. She took it with her free hand, leaning her head forwards to make sure she didn’t spill the last few drops all over herself.

“Oh please,” She laughed, draining the bottle and tossing it haphazardly over their heads, “You know a lot of random nonsense about ancient Greece and Rome. That’s not exactly knowing ‘lots of things about lots of things’.”

“Really?” He asked, turning his face towards her so that their noses were almost touching, the far off flickering of the bonfire dancing in his dark eyes.

“Yeah, really,” she persisted, trying not to focus on how close he was, how easy it would be to reach over, to press her lips to his.

Bellamy seemed to sense the direction her thoughts were taking, his gaze fluttering down to her lips for the barest moment before he cleared his throat and turned to face the sky again.

“You see that constellation there?” He asked, and Clarke wasn’t sure if his voice had gotten huskier or if it was just her imagination. Using their clasped hands to point at the inky blackness spread over them, he traced a line between the stars, framing a rough shape.

“That’s Cassiopeia, she was a queen in ancient Greece, well known for being the most beautiful woman in the kingdom. So, of course, all of that went to her head, and she started saying that she was the most beautiful thing in all existence, even more beautiful than the Gods.”

Clarke was trying to see the shape Bellamy was pointing out for her but it just looked like a bunch of stars in a crooked line, useful for guiding and orientation, but definitely not the image of some incredibly beautiful ancient queen. Besides, she was having a hard time focusing on anything other than the man lying next to her, his face lit by firelight and stars, the lines and battle scars faded by the soft light and the stories he loved so much.

“So naturally,” Bellamy continued, apparently completely oblivious to Clarke’s watching him, “Poseidon, the sea god, got pissed, told her that she had to take back what she had said. When she refused, he threatened the people of her kingdom, said that the only way to save them was to sacrifice her daughter, Andromeda, to his sea monster.”

“What a dick,” Clarke broke in and Bellamy chuckled, not taking his eyes off the stars.

“All the gods and goddesses were basically dicks,” he confirmed, “Now, shush, I’m telling a story.”

“Right, sorry,” Clarke settled herself more comfortably against Bellamy’s side, turning her face back up to the sky.

“Anyway, Cassiopeia did it, chained her daughter to a cliff face to feed to the sea monster.”

Clarke bit back the urge to call the Queen a dick too, enjoying the soothing sound of Bellamy’s voice as he told her of ancient worlds and their gods, and people who only had to worry about ending up trapped in the stars if they angered those gods.

The slow, lilting tone of his words conjured up images of a young Bellamy telling the same stories to his sister, seeing the stars from the other side.

“But luckily for Andromeda, a strapping young hero named Perseus was passing by and saved her, killing the monster at the same time.”

Clarke held her breath, feeling drunk, not off of the alcohol though that had loosened a few brain cells but off the night air, the smell of smoke and Bellamy’s skin, the nearness of him, the warmth that radiated off him and tickled her blood stream.

“When that happened, Poseidon got even more pissed and grabbed Cassiopeia, hanging her upside in the stars so that she would always be ashamed of her vanity and pride.”

Bellamy’s voice faded away on the night air and he lowered their intertwined hands, resting them against his chest so that Clarke could feel the steady thumping of his heart.

She wondered, errantly, if he could feel her pulse beating madly. She knew she was being ridiculous, that Bellamy would be horrified if he could read her thoughts as easily as he read the stars.

It was too soon after Lexa, it was just an instinctual response to being told they were going to die, it was the alcohol and the need to seek comfort away from all the pain and fear and death.

But it also wasn’t. She may have been able to use those explanations if it had been anyone but Bellamy. But it was Bellamy, a man she trusted, a man she cared for even when she thought caring was weakness. The one person whose face she would call to mind to soothe away the images of people screaming, dying. It was his voice and his touch she imagined when the nightmares wouldn’t let her sleep, his lips pressing into her skin, telling her he trusted her, that he forgave her, that he loved her.

He was the one who knew her, knew all of her and accepted her all the same. He didn’t need her to be the Wanheda or the leader of the hundred, didn’t need her for comfort or to tend his wounds. He had seen the darkest, most horrible parts of her and held her hand through it all.

He was Bellamy and she was Clarke and somehow that was all that mattered.

“I know that’s not as useful as knowing how to tie a proper tourniquet or digging a bullet out of someone but . . .” He trailed off, letting the silence settle over them again, a calm, peaceful silence, smiling over at her, completely unaware of the colossal shift that had just happened in her mind.

Slowly, cautiously, she closed the space between them, her lips pressing chastely, firmly against his.

A million fireworks burst to life beneath her skin at the feeling of his lips finally against hers. A kiss she had held back for so long; when he had found her again, bound and gagged by Roan, when she had pressed her lips to his cheek instead, before leaving, when she hugged him so fiercely after escaping Mount Weather, when they had watched their rockets paint the sky. A million times, a million chances, all leading to this moment, the seal on a promise they had made the moment they had had set eyes on each other for the first time.

But then Bellamy’s lips were turning to marble beneath hers, ice tracing the lines of his body and he was moving away from her, cold air slithering between them like a thousand tiny needles.

Clarke opened her eyes, finding his, the darkness of them, usually so warm and inviting, like honey or chocolate, was becoming infinite, a dark curtain, shutting her out. A spear of pain went through her, deeper and more all encompassing than anything she had felt watching Finn or Lexa die. Because this was Bellamy and he was pulling away from her, he was right there, his breath painting her skin but his eyes were so far away that she could barely see him in them anymore.

“Bellamy,” her words a sigh, a plea, an apology. What had she done?

“Clarke,” he answered and his fingers untwisted themselves from hers, the loss of it sending cold spilling into her veins.

He took a deep breath and by some trick of the light she thought she could see his pulse fluttering madly in his throat. In contrast, she felt as if her heart had stopped, as if the steady rushing of her blood had been brought up short and her lungs were full of breath she had forgotten how to breathe. What had she done? Had she lost him finally? Had this kindness, this gentleness done what all the pain and harshness couldn’t do?

“I can’t . . .” he began, his voice splintering and he took another breath, his eyes boring into hers, as if daring her to look away, “I can’t do this if it isn’t you, Clarke. If you need to grieve, I’m here, same as I always have been. If you need a punching bag or a partner, I can be that for you. I can talk or I can listen, I can be almost anything you need me to be.”

Another breath and this time Clarke thought she could see cracks in the dark curtain of his eyes, the sadness there so complete that he couldn’t contain it anymore.

“But I can’t be just a warm body to lose yourself in. There’s too much . . . I’ve done that before, been with someone because it was easier to fuck them than to deal with what was really happening and I can’t let you do that to me, I can’t let you do that to yourself.”

The curtain was falling away and she could see him clearly, for what felt like the first time. She looked into his eyes and she could see all the things that he had hidden away because he knew she wasn’t ready, because he wasn’t ready.

“You’re under my skin, Clarke, you’re in my blood and if I ever . . . if I could ever have you like that I wouldn’t be able to let you go. I wouldn’t be able to wake up the next morning and pretend like nothing ever happened. If I’m going to have you, I need to have everything, no more running away, no more pretending, you give me everything you have and I’ll give you every part of myself in return.” He chuckled ruefully, with a sort of bitter humor, “Not that you don’t already own it all already.”

It was Clarke’s turn to take a deep breath, the air slowly returning to her lungs, her heart stuttering back to life. She knew what he was saying, knew what he was asking of her. If she wanted to, they could walk away from this, blame it on the alcohol, revisit it when the world wasn’t ending, when the loss of Lexa wasn’t still fresh in her heart. They could go on the way they always had, dancing around this huge thing, pushing it away to keep from getting hurt, focusing on solving every other problem in the world and find their way back to each other when everything was perfect.

But nothing would ever be perfect, even if they managed to find a way to save their people, their planet, once again, there would always be more fights, more grief, more death and pain and misery. There was no point in pretending there wouldn’t be, just like there was no point in pretending that Bellamy wasn’t in every atom of her being, that she needed him like she needed to breathe, that she would never become the person she was meant to be if she didn’t have him right there beside her.

“I can’t promise you a happily ever after,” she said finally, trying to put the mad swirl of thoughts into words, “Hell, I can’t even promise you a future that doesn’t end in horror and bloodshed, but whatever future I have waiting for me, you need to be a part of it. I can’t tell you I . . .” She felt the words rising up in her throat, choking her, desperate to come out, terrified of what would happen if they did, “I can’t say those words, not yet. But what I can say is that you are my heart, Bellamy Blake, you are my weakness and my strength and you mean everything to me.”

She watched as he studied her face, caution battling with reckless hope, and after an endless moment hope won out.

His hands framed her face, his thumbs tracing the line of her lips, her cheekbones, and then he was kissing her, wildly, desperately, incredibly. His mouth formed a hundred promises against hers, pouring himself into the kiss, into her.

She felt his hands ghosting down her body, bringing every cell to burning life and she held onto him, her fingers wanting to touch every part of him, wanting to burn herself into him.

He fit perfectly against her, his body molding to her every curve, his arms and hands and fingers pressing into her skin as if they had always been meant to. She wanted to yell at herself, wanted to call herself every name she could think of for running away from this, for pretending that this would make her weak, make her less than what she was. When really she had never felt so strong as she did with Bellamy’s arms around her, his lips pressing into her skin. They could move mountains; they could save the world a hundred times over as long as they held onto each other.

“Clarke,” he said, pulling back to take a breath, forehead resting against hers, her name falling like a prayer from his lips, shifting his weight so that he was holding himself over her, his body pressed into hers.

“Bellamy, your ribs,” she gasped, a lone, logical, irrational thought bursting to the surface of her mind, “You’ll hurt yourself . . .” She broke off as he pressed another burning, perfect kiss to her lips.

“Shut up princess,” he ordered, his lips moving across her jaw, down her throat, writing the words they couldn’t give a voice to yet into her skin.

Clarke dug her fingers in his hair, pulling his lips to hers again, starving for the taste of him, for the sight of him.

And for the first time in her life, she saw the stars the way they were supposed to be, not just cold diamonds punched through darkness, viewed from miles above or miles below. But a constellation of freckles across the face of the man she loved, a story, marked out in shining, shimmering light of two people who had been born in space and found their way to Earth, to each other, to their home.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to everyone who took the time to read this. This was just a little story I had rattling around in my head, a sort of fluff piece to break up the monster of a fic I've been working on for what seems like forever. (Which is coming soon, hopefully)  
> Also, I just really wanted to give these guys a little bit of happiness because after everything they've gone through/will go through, they needed a silver lining. Even if you had to wade through a bit of angst to get to it.  
> My first piece on here so any comments or feedback is greatly appreciated.


End file.
